“The players retrenched, transposed, and even altered the text, to suit the audience or please themselves. Who knows how much rust they rubbed off? I am sure there is rust and base metal to spare left in the old plays. When Leigh Hunt comes we shall have battles enough about those old ruffiani, the old dramatists, with their tiresome conceits, their jingling rhymes, and endless play upon words. It is but lately that people have been satisfied that Shakspeare was not a god, nor stood alone in the age in which he lived; and yet how few of the plays, even of that boasted time, have survived, and fewer still are now acted! Let us count them. Only one of Massinger’s (New Way to pay Old Debts), one of Ford’s,[1] one of Ben Jonson’s,[1] and half-a-dozen of Shakspeare’s; and of these last, ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ and ‘The Tempest’ have been turned into operas. You cannot call that having a theatre. Now that Kemble has left the stage, who will endure Coriolanus? Lady Macbeth died with Mrs. Siddons, and Polonius will with Munden. Shakspeare’s Comedies are quite out of date; many of them are insufferable to read, much more to see. They are gross food, only fit for an English or German palate;
